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Abstract
Populism, the emphasis on the needs of the common people, is alive and well in Kansas. It is once and again the strength and weakness of Kansas community colleges. The present day community colleges began long before the great rise of the community college movement of the 1960s. Kansas community colleges began as indicators of small town pride and were designed to meet local needs. This original mission has shaped the colleges, for better or worse, since their inception. Kansas does not have a system of community colleges, and it has the lowest percentage of state funding in the country. As the community colleges evolved, the small towns where they began could no longer afford the new missions and increasing costs so they became county entities, thus expanding their populist base. Today, Kansas community colleges are once again in a funding crisis. Maybe it is time to repeat the successful redefinition of populism by expanding their geography and missions. This change is not without danger, and the needed dramatic changes, never easy to make in Kansas, are even more difficult because the Kansas community colleges have lived and been funded based on a limited concept of populism for a long time.